I've got an eberspacher heater for my motorhome, runs on diesel, but at almost a quid a litre i'm not happy running it on road diesel,
red diesel is apparantly not recomended for these heaters, lots of problems running on red, and at a grand for the heater, if eberspacher say dont use red diesel, then i'm not gonna use red.
they do say you can use paraffin tho,
however it seems no where sells paraffin from a pump anymore, all i can get is a 4 litre bottle of the stuff for a daft price,
i'm fitting a 45 litre tank for the heater fuel, so a couple of 25 litre drum of paraffin would do, but where do you get it from, bulk paraffin means 500 litres or more it seems when searching for paraffin in bulk, don't quite want that much.
i'm near nottingham, but will travel to get the tank filled if there is a place that pumps paraffin left anywhere in the midlands, or on the way dfown south to dover as that's where i'm going in 2 weeks.
'Phone your local oil fuel distributer/supplier, who will tell you about diesel (ask about the "char value", and tell them what you're thinking of putting it in). You should be able to get paraffin at £0.65/L (I enquired a month or two ago).
I've got one of these fitted in my boat and that runs on "marine" red diesel exclusively, year in year out. I wonder if there is anything different in the specifications? What type do you have?
I know several boat owners have fitted the "road" types since everything marine is more expensive. They just need to be careful to use stainless steel fastenings in place of the road version's cheaper plated steel ones. I'm not aware of anything different with the burner itself.
Im surprised by that, my local (independent) petrol station has both paraffin and red (gas oil) diesel pumps on the forecourt Perhaps you need to have a drive out into the countryside and find a non essobpshellelf garage. im in Sussex which would Probably be too far... ;-(
type in 'oil fuel' and 'nottingham' which will bring up all the oil fuel distributors.
Paraffin is often called kerosene now or PBO (premium burning oil). I use it in my parts cleaning tank and just take an empty 25 litre drum to the local supplier when I need a refill. It ain't hard stuff to find.
Ahha, that's what i was thinking last night, other names for the stuff, Guess i need to pop over to chandlers oil and gas up the road and see if they can help this time, never have been able before when i was after an argon/co2 gas mix for the mig welder, they seemed to have every other gas but an argon mix,
There are a few places that have the old parafin pumps on the forecourts, but they've all been de-commsioned years ago, all these new regs mean the old pumps arent accurate enough it seems, and it's not worth the expence for a new pump when they can sell gallon cans of the stuff for 6 times the price, they rekon most people want it for those garden lamps anyway, or a little bit for the greenhouse heater, not 45 litres at a time into a tank mounted on a vehicle.
I'm weary of running the heater on red diesel, there's lots of doccumented problems on the canal boating forums about the problems, coking up of the heater when run on red, one person had a brand new boat with a D10w heater in it, his is a live aboard and he was getting about a month of use before the thing coked up and wouldent fire,
eberspacher came out lots of times and kept warning him that it's keep happening if he continued to run on red, there's even bulitens out from eberspacher saying not to use red with their heaters, but apparantly only the boat builders get these, not the general public.
I know canal diesel is supposed to be worse than road diesel, the red variety that is, but when my local garage that sells red diesel dosent even know what's at the pump nozzle, price board says gas oil, pump says red diesel, the 2 are different oils, one's heating oil, the other's road diesel with red dye and none of the addetives in it,
It does seem there are different internals to these heaters, i have the D5ws, 12 volt version, the eberspacher docs that came with the heater that specified what fuels to use (white road diesel and parafin for my heater) say you can run the 24 volt version of this heater on bio-diesel, but not the 12 volt version, yet no explnation why,
Which is why i'm fitting a seperate tank in the first place, as i run my van's engine on bio-diesel for about 5 months of the year when i'm living in it abroad,
I don't think you'll find any clear idea of the difference between 'red diesel' and 'gas oil' and '35 second oil', because almost everyone treats them as synonyms. The stuff is white diesel with a red dye and another tracer added. There is no 'road variety' of red diesel, and there is no distinction between the 'heating fuel' (domestically, people don't tend to heat with 35-second oil nowadays) and the 'road diesel with additives'.
At a certain point in the distribution chain (it used to be surprisingly close to the end-user, I don't know if it still is), red diesel is made from white diesel by adding the dye and tracer and performing the appropriate bits of tax-related paperwork.
I would be interested to read Eberspacher's precise words on this - at first glance, it seems a little unlikely that there would be something in red diesel which didn't harm a modern tractor engine but did harm something as simple as a space heater. Do you have a reference?
But if it burns kerosene (28-second oil, burning oil), then I'm sure you'll find that cleaner - and if nothing else you'll be saving a few pence per litre in duty. It still has the tracer additive, and I think it's dyed nowadays - just not red)
Basically:
"Gas oil" is "35 second oil" is "red diesel" "Burning oil" is "28 second oil" is "kerosene"
Will posted what I understood to be the case and the delivery lorry driver said the dye and tracer were only added at the point the fuel left the bonded depot and was injected into the line as the tanker filled. So if it's designed to run on 35 sec gasoil it should make little difference it run on DERV or rebated red gasoil.
well, I run an Aga, and that needs the lighter grade - 28sec? something like that..and its a lot better in a wick/vaporizer burner than standard CH 'diesel'; and is noticeably different.
Doesn't coke up so much. Jet fuel is pretty much similar too..paraffin as such is a very vague term.
Its all various mixes of long chain hydrocarbons anyway.
It depends on the "char value" - fuels with a higher value will clog wicks faster. Paraffin has a lower char value than central heating fuel. Is your Aga one designed for heating oil, or a converted one with a wick?
Paraffin is only a vague term now that terminology is being abused.
Longer than some, shorter than others!
P.S. I thought you said I was in your killfile? Perhaps it was someone else.
If i wasnt so busy today i'd have niped upto chandlers oil and gas in town and seen what they do, as they do heating oil in bulk deliveries, so they must do parafin, kerosene, 28 sec oil or what ever it's called,
i wonder how they'll be with me wanting to fill a tank that's fitted to the motorhome, i guess a diesel engine wont run on 28 sec oil, so hopefully they wont refuse because they think i'm running the engine on it, 45 litres wont get me very far anyway, the engine tanks take 140 litres, and the parafin tank will be right at the back of the van, on the oposite side to the engine fuel tanks.
But i guess if they do get stroppy, i'll have to buy a 25 litre jerry can, park up outside the dopot, walk in and fill it, walk out and empty it into the tank, walk back in and fill it once more, and that's my onboard tank filled (well, overflowed if i empty all of the last can in)
It's not up to them - anyway, you are not doing anything underhand. You may need a container anyway, some outlets ("back of a garage") that I've used have a tank of paraffin with a c*ck on the bottom, and no measuring gear!
Agreed, if it runs fine on road duty paid "white" diesel it should run fine on rebated red diesel.
And I can see if the heater is designed to run on 28 sec (domestic heating oil, kerosene) that running it on 35sec may well cause problems with coking up. I suspect it that a simple adjustment and/or a different jet is all that would be required to change the fuel requirement.
28sec is now yellow and also has "invisible" tracers as well like red.
and is road diesel when the duty has been applied but not the dye and tracers.
and is parafin. Though stuff for lamps/room heaters etc might be better refined and have a perfume added.
The "28 second" and "35 second" refer to a viscosity test, how long it takes a standard quantity of the oil to flow through a standard hole in a standard container.
I haven't a clue. Like all oil burning agas it has a wick to start it, but works by vaporising the oil once its actually hot. Its brand new - well 4 years old.. I do know that I have to burn a slightly lighter grade of oil than the boiler would otherwise tolerate/
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